Sunday, Day 2, Part II

Our first course of action after we sped out of the pristine campsite was to refuel the Merc, as we weren't allowed to fuel the car while "off the clock".










So we pulled to the side of the road, Dad donned his protective oil-resistant suit, and unloaded ten gallons of veggie-oil into the tank.

Scott's always getting the killer angles.

After we were done, we sped off down the road to brave the Ebbets and Monitor Passes in the mountains, a route that would soon turn fatal...

While zooming through the beautiful mountain-scape, we couldn't help but notice some quite noticeable engine fluctuations. The engine would constantly switch from full power to less than half, considerably slowing down the car.

It went away after a few minutes, we figured the oil was coagulating in the fuel pumps, but it got warm and usable. The next several hours was smooth sailing.

It doesn't help that the engine exhaust smells like bbq...

One of many quaint little towns along the mountainous route.

We stopped in the town of Arnold to grab a bite to eat and refuel our tank, little did we know that this would be the start of the series of unfortunate events...

Scott getting the same angle as last time.

The next one-hundred and fifty miles would be a menagerie of feelings from awe to despair. The surrounding mountains, trees, lakes, and snow, were things of beauty. But under the hood, things didn't look too well. As we went higher and higher in altitude, it got cooler and cooler to below freezing at some points. The oil started coagulating into lard and polymers in the oil filters, and barely any liquid fuel got to the engine. The engine was fluctuating even more, and wasn't letting up. We toughed through it at less-than half power, but our inability to even sustain 35mph. on a flat made us constantly pull over to let passing traffic by.

It turned out to be fine when we got to Ebbets Pass, where no one in the right mind would go more than 25mph. The road was a narrow single-lane, with NO guard rails, and ALWAYS a near-vertical cliff on one side. It was barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. I gingerly steered the car through narrow switchbacks and any other variation of a windy road you can think of. After several hours of high pucker factor driving, we finally made it to the CA/395.

The fuel coagulation really started becoming a problem as we could barely sustain safe freeway speeds in a 65mph zone.

After another painstaking hour, Dad took over driving and we made our way to Bridgeport, where we stopped at the local Shell station to look at what was wrong.

The problem was what we expected, and more. The fuel, although heavily filtered, had a high concentration of fats. And in the cold, the fats would coagulate and plug up the fuel filters. The filter looks like it's filled with lard. As we warily trundled off to reach Mono Lake in hopes of an open auto parts store, Dad got an idea.

We drove back to the Bridgeport Shell station, where dad worked out his plan, the plan that would soon be known as, "The Newman Tank".